Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1887-04-23

4
of winter like scroll from the
Heavens. Even in the city, where
the piled monuments of man to Man,
mon have crowded nature from view,
! it /, welcome and beautiful.
But the country! All, you dwell
lers in stone and Tapped in the luxu-
ry of civilization, knowing not the
glory of the awakening Of a myriad
myriads to life and motion and beau
ty, come to the mountains and fields
and watch the coming forth. There
is more ofs lesson in the stepping
of one azalca from its shackles than
YOU will learn in the cathedral;
better sermon in the Haunting of one
newborn butterhy's wing than your
chosen orator can furnish more sa-
cred music in the ripping stream,
the drone of busy insects n.the field,
and the whisper of the wind among
the uncurled leaves, than in the an-
them rolled from the great organ TO
the rafters of cedar; more of truth
and of teaching and worship and awe
before the foot-stool of mountains,
under the infinite arch of sapphire
keystoned by the MONDAY sun, than
in the temple OF mau's making where
We kneel and pray.
And now the far-seeing farmer,
with one eye on his uncertain crop
and the other on certain boarders,
lays in gingerly his frugal store of
Paris green and pickles, bug-powder
and canned peas. He paints his
well-box blue and his barn red, his
fence joyous yellow and bis piazza
an ineffable blue, and concocts the
painstaking prospectus which shall
lure the city family from its jungle
90 pay him Sc week per head for
the luxuries Of cabbage and beans,
flies and corned beef, Moody and
Sanky on Sunday, the industrious
joys OF cunning at night with ker-
osene lamp and the unremitting
round OF gable and pie.
Look from the burrows long fal
low spring the multitudinous threads
of green. There will the sweet pea
fIutter her purple wings, the succu-
lent bean shall climb the slantng
pole, and the emerald daggers ofthe
corn pierce the hills brown breast.
| There are MARTA led the battalions
of lettuce and beet yonder sprawl
the melon and squash, the asparagus
lifts his imperial head and the par
sley shakes out his savory plume.
You will get none of these. Oh, no!
They are contracted for already, to
wilt in the market Of the sweltering
city your dreams of esculent fresh
ness and green will be realized only
in relics of a bygone age, coflined
long since in can.
| Come to the country, you fevered
toilers-come, if but for a day
drink of the rill whose waters fort
night ago were the crystals of snow,
and are now the heaven ofthe jewel
ed trout and contemplative frog.
Come, to watch the miracle upon
miracle of nature stepping. from the
old years charnel to don the holt
day robe and fill the scene with BIOS
SONS and harvest Come, to watch
the small boy, emancipated from
thriftless hours by the comforting
stove, sauntering smilingly forth
to see if the hornets are up and do.
ing. The small boy of the village
knows little Latin and less Greek.
Unlearned is he in base ball records
and the chewing gum markets, but
in tracking the undulating tadpole
to his sedgy lair, unearthing the
desperate woodchuck from his tun-
mel, gathering the sumac and the
briar's perfumed spray, whistling
| the doodlebug from his sandy fun
mel or smoking out the wild and
vengeful bee from his gnarled Gov
ert in the stump. the boy of coun-
try-parts, splay-footed and tawny
with continent freckles, has no peer
in the world. Sometimes the boy
finds the hornet and comes home.
All day long the fields are merry
and musical, and the golden glory
sitting through the darkened tangle
of leaves, shows beauty upon beauty
growing and nesting in the shade, a
| world of mntinn and life Than cnmnS